title: Are variations among subjects in lateral asymmetry real individual differences or random error in measurement? Putting variability in its place.
abstract: The current research investigates sources of variability in subjects' asymmetry scores on commonly used laterality tasks. In particular, subjects' asymmetry scores on four bilateral tachistoscopic tasks and one free-vision task were entered into a principal component analysis (PCA) in order to investigate components that explain the maximum variance of the sample. The results indicate that about half of the variation (45.2%) in asymmetry scores on both tachistoscopic and free-vision tasks is attributable to individual differences in characteristic perceptual asymmetry. The amount of variance explained by this characteristic perceptual asymmetry component is similar in a sample of dextrals and a sample of sinistrals. No significant relation was revealed between individual differences in characteristic perceptual asymmetry and performance on various verbal and spatial cognitive tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Chicago.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: S C
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Levine
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kertesz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D011340:Problem Solving; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014705:Verbal Behavior